Airport passenger numbers up across the board but down slightly in Shannon and Cork

Almost 6.7m passengers passed through Irish airports in the first quarter of this year, an increase of of 4% when compared to the same period in 2016.

According to the latest aviation statistics from the CSO passenger numbers increased in Dublin, Knock and Kerry airports in the first quarter of this year but fell at Cork (-0.2%) and Shannon (-4%).

The CSO figures show Dublin airport accounted for over 85 per-cent of all air passengers in the first quarter of 2017 (45,013) while Cork handled 7.4% of all flights (3,942).

London- Heathrow, London-Gatwick and Amsterdam were the most popular routes for passengers for Dublin airport.

In Cork airport, the top three routes were London-Heathrow, London-Stansted and Amsterdam.

The top route for Shannon was London-Heathrow, the top route for Knock was London-Stansted while the top route for Kerry was London-Luton.

In the first quarter of 2017, almost nine out of every ten passengers (89.4%) on international flights in the five main airports were travelling to or from Europe.

The two most popular countries of origin/destination were the United Kingdom and Spain. Outside of Europe, the United States of America was the most popular country of origin/destination in the first quarter of 2017.

The report also shows that Ireland’s main airports handled a total of 35,509 tonnes of freight in the first quarter of 2017, the vast majority (93.9%) of which was international freight.